Curvy Opinion: #CakeWithCashmerette and the state of internet culture

Well, I’ve had a very interesting month. Never in the wildest depths of my imagination could I have thought that a slightly sarcastic comment and funny hashtag on my Instagram would lead to a campaign against body shaming which ended up in the mediaaroundthe world!

In case you missed it, a random troll made a comment on my Instagram that I was disgusting and should “eat less cake”, and in return, hundreds of women around the world ate #CakeWithCashmerette and took lovely photos of themselves enjoying it. What’s better than seeing women having a delicious day from the US to the UK, Germany to Brazil, Australia to Vietnam?

It was a truly startling and surprising time, and not always that comfortable for me personally – I never signed up to be a global spokeperson for this! It did however crystalize a few things in my mind, that I’d only started to realize before.

First, that women all around the world are really and truly sick of body shaming. It’s not only larger women who feel like this – the number of comments and emails I got from women of absolutely all appearances, from “perfect” in the eyes of society through to “imperfect” made it really apparent that body shaming has little to do with “objective” appearance. Particularly on the internet, there’s so much aggression towards all types of women, and so often it focuses on our bodies, as something to be judged and shamed, regardless of what we might be talking about, or why we might be highlighted. Ironically, the image on Instagram that the troll originally commented on wasn’t even a photo – it was a sketch of a swimsuit! I think that the universality of the experience of being shamed was what made the story go viral.

One joke I made during the week it was blowing up was that it appears that for many people (mostly men), the internet is their personal “hot or not” page: that regardless of why a woman is portrayed in the media, or the context, the main question for them is “would you, or would you not, like to have intimate relations with this woman?” I now have literally thousands of opinions from men all around the world, whether in comments sections, or on email, about what they think of the sexual attractiveness of my body. As body positive as I generally am, I can’t deny that it was a jarring experience, and an unfortunate reinforcement of the fact that many people are judging you, even if you’ve learned to mostly shrug off the judgement yourself.

A fairly typical comment

But finally, it certainly wasn’t only the men. I’ve noticed more generally – and even on the Curvy Sewing Collective – a new culture in comments sections on newspapers and blog sites. In real life, if you don’t like what someone has said, or what they’re wearing, or you think they could do with advice, the first thing you’d consider is whether to even share your opinion. Is it helpful? Did they ask for feedback? Do you have something worthwhile to add? Would the person appreciate it? And if it could be, there’s a nice way to give criticism – like “I found your piece really thought provoking, but I don’t agree for reason X, Y, Z, what do you think?”. Instead, there’s a new trend of meanness and anger directed towards people who are sharing their often uncontroversial thoughts online, and a jump to judgement, personal attacks, and flamboyant “taking of offence”.

I’m not quite sure who the people are who do this – whether they’re that angry and vitriolic in their personal lives and it’s erupting everywhere, or whether it only comes out under a veil of anonymity online. But it’s insidious, because not only does it upset people unnecessarily, but it stops people who may be newer or more uncertain from sharing their opinions, or blog posts, and fundamentally stifles the positive debate that sites like this can foster. Don’t get me wrong – I’m no Pollyanna and I certainly don’t think people shouldn’t debate things or share criticism online. But I do think there’s a mature and compassionate way to do that, and I hope that people can reflect on how their words and actions might affect others. Believe me, that when public discussion of you becomes a global and viral phenomenon, it makes you more aware than average!

I’ve come out of this “15 minutes of fame” experience somewhat bewildered that it even happenned, somewhat disheartened about what it’s taught me about anonymous commenting culture, but mostly really happy at how much the body positivity message resonated with women literally all around the world, and at how incredibly awesome the sewing and blogging communities are. So, it’s never too late – eat some cake today!

Like this:

About Jenny

Jenny is on a mission to help all curvy women feel fantastic by sewing beautifully well-fitting clothes. She runs Cashmerette Patterns, the first sewing patterns designed for curves in sizes 12 - 28, and cup sizes C - H. Jenny blogs at: Cashmerette

Comments

You are so classy. Probably classier than Internet trolls deserve, but in situations like these, the high road is not only the best road, it’s the only road if you don’t want to become just like those doing the trolling. Thank you so much for contributing to the creation and success of this site. I feel like it’s one of the very few places online where every woman is welcome and every opinion is (largely) respected, even if not agreed with. No one here would ever resort to body-shaming simply because they disagreed with another and needed a way to invalidate her opinion. And in my opinion, that is what is at the root of so much of the body-shaming going on, both online and offline: the need to silence women, because the only thing relevant about us (in the tiny minds of Internet trolls) is the way we look and our sexual value; the idea that women are to be seen and not heard. Or that intelligence and self-confidence in women–regardless of her perceived value–somehow threatens men. (well, maybe it does; it threatens the status quo maintained by the patriarchy.) I’m sorry that you experienced the negativity, but it seems like a lot of positivity has been the result.

I had cake tonight. It was delicious 😉
I love that women are trying to be less judgemental. Its a long, rough road we have ahead of us. If we could remove men and the media from our thinking, I really feel most women would be kinder to herself and her sisters.
I want to share my sympathies regarding the men who shared their opinion of yes or no to sexual intimacy – sympathies as you never offered or invited. How rude/arrogant/shallow of them to think with their private areas. As though any woman wants that info from a stranger, ever!
What I think of myself has absolutely nothing to do with a mans (sexual) opinion of me or my body. What matters is my heart and soul.
Hugs for you!

Brava for the way you handled this, Jenny and thank you so much for sharing this whole episode here. Long before the term body shaming was invented, I saw exactly how much damage it can do. My sister died of complications stemming from morbid obesity at the age of 49. Growing up, she was full of energy, but she was overweight and that set her up for endless criticism and wave upon wave of attempts to “fix the problem.” She got the message that there was something wrong with her and it made her eat even more. Big surprise. When she developed serious health issues as an adult, the people who were supposed to help her also criticized her for creating the problem. Our mother died of lung cancer because she smoked for 40 years and nobody in the health care professions blamed her for her condition. For that matter, our emergency rooms are filled with people who injury themselves because of their behaviors – riding motorcycles without a helmet, excessive drinking, smoking, whatever. But people with weight-related health issues are singled out for discrimination. It makes me furious and very, very sad. Jen, you look gorgeous in your swimsuit and you do wonderful work on this blog. Thank you for taking a stand against the type of behavior that took my sister away from me much too soon and made her life miserable.

That post was just spot-on, Jenny! It’s so weird that internet has brought together all of these fun, nice, positive sewing people around the world, and also unleashed the most rude, cowardly and hateful anonymous behavior. Good for you for handling it with grace.

I am so happy to hear that women around the world ate cake in support of you!!! I would have also, but am just now reading about this “sensation”!!! I have to admit that I have been reading the Curvy Sewing Collective blog for about a year now – I haven’t done any sewing in many years and never was a super good sewist, but the blog makes me feel so darn good about myself!!! Here’s cake to all of you fabulous sewers!!!

If you’re female then all society has an inordinate interest what you do with your body. An enormous amount of human resources from the beginning of history have been devoted to telling women what to think and how to behave. You can literally be killed for disobeying gender expectations. The rules are under constant review and get updated daily to suit whatever agenda is being rolled out by the political, religious, patriarchal or relevant power
that wants to direct what you do with your life. What might have been expected of your mother or female forebears will be different in the contemporary world and can/will change again tomorrow. Any woman alive for more than 3 decades will have lived this experience in one way or another. Men get angry and abusive towards women they perceive are questioning the expectations because they fear the rule making is being taken out of their control. Modern western women, by refusing to change their behaviour and be intimidated – by actively protesting personally and politically, are empowering themselves to throw off the ancient shackles that have supported the dominance of masculine power in our society….

IF YOU’RE A FULLFIGURED WOMEN AND REFUSING TO BE SHAMED THEN
YOU’RE LIVING A SUBVERSIVE ACT THAT WILL THREATEN MISOGYNY – BE PREPARED FOR REGULAR VILIFICATION

It’s patriarchy in service to capitalism and capitalism in service to patriarchy. The more power and parity women have gained, especially political, economic, and professional, the more appearance has been pushed as an accomplishment, as fulfillment, as power. And because what is defined as “beauty” is as much about practice (if not more so) than what a woman actually looks like, even attractive women sink their time, money, energy, and mentalities into the actions needed to perform beauty. Capitalism profits from women’s insecurities when women buy things to meet norms and engage the practice of beauty. Patriarchy profits because that is time, money, energy taken away from education, professional development, civic engagement, etc. It is hard to bust one system of oppression without dismantling the other, if we want to see real change in women’s lives, at least at relates to the tyranny of appearance (to turn Kim Chernin’s phrase).

As Cindy said, if I had read about this earlier – I’d have joined in the cake eating too! You handled this with much more wisdom than I might have.
Love the swimsuit, it’s just perfect on you. And as I said on your blog, great ideas about using the pervious interior bits – why didn’t I think of that??
Wonderful, thoughtful post and wonderful suit ! Thanks for this community of curvies!

I’ve found this discussion interesting and it hits a related nerve for me. You are fortunate to be a beautiful young woman,Jenny. Try having an ugly face: “well-meaning ” people have been helpfully telling me that my whole life. It’s amazing that I’m even married, isn’t it? I try to keep my spirits up, but you’ll never see my face on the internet when I model my creations.

You are married because your other half sees your beauty he (or she) is blessed to have you in their life.

“Well meaning people” are simply looking outwards to pick on someone /anyone, instead of looking inwards and seeing themselves for what they have become…ugly. To me there everyone is unique, beautiful and very special and each of us has a gift to share with the world. Shine on everyone shine on =)

I think you handled the situation so well and much better than I could have done. I read your article at the time but didn’t realise just how global the story has gone. I’m very saddened to hear about the thousands of male comments; if even a handful were like the one you posted I’m not surprised you feel jarred – but your implication is that the majority were of this nature. I’m glad you’re still here!!

Thanks Anne! Behind the scenes I wasn’t always handling it *that* well, but I managed to keep my public face consistent at least 🙂 Sadly the vast majority of the comments were indeed like that – at least on the original article, on the one that *I* wrote they were much more positive.

Ahhh, so much food for thought! I agree that the anonymity of some commenting forums means that people say a lot of stuff they’d never say to someone’s face. And I assume, for them, the impact of that comment is short lived – but I’m the one left crying and sad for a week! (Sure, I could learn to be tougher, and I have, but no one would argue that I should learn to put up with physical abuse, so why should I learn to put up with verbal abuse?) On the other hand, so much of our online community is lovely and kind and generous with their time and encouragement.
For what it’s worth, I thought you handled it all so well – managing to crank out thoughtful writing in a very short time frame, and not retreating despite the abuse. (The thought of getting mean emails makes me sick, actually – seems so much more personal than being slagged in a comment!) I loved seeing all the men and women who rallied around cake and self-worth!

Totally. And then to add insult to injury there’s a jeering “hahahhaha I can’t believe that she was upset by this! My god what a pathetic person”. I actually have more respect for in-life Mean Girls who stand over their victims and see the results, and can’t deny that they caused that. Why oh why the subject of *sewing* has to be one that causes virulent responses, I’ll never know. We’re not discussing the Middle East here, people!

First, you handled this so well. I’m sorry I didn’t know of it until reading this post, I would have joined and ate cake, too.
The positive and encouraging blogs on sewing for “Curvy” women has touched my life in such a positive way. Please keep it up. My daughter, now 25, grew into a very curvy lady. I have had such a tough time accepting her image. She is so beautiful, and for YEARS all I have wished is for her to lose the weight. You all have changed that. I can sew for her. I can help her look great, at any size she wishes to be. And I love that. Tears are rolling down my cheeks, it means so much to let the image thing go. Keep up the good work – thank you. No doubt you have influenced more than just me.

I’m touched by the poignancy of your new realization, in particular since my grandson is, in rtw parlance, “husky.” My children were slender, so I don’t know how to talk about his changing body. For all kids, and boys in particular, being non-athletic can damage self esteem. I worry that he’ll grow up hating his body. Then there’s the “cholesterol will kill you” trope that suggests anything above a certain body fat is unhealthy and will lead to premature death.

So, I need advice. Completely ignoring body talk with my grandson feels abnormal. Typically grandparents exclaim, “Oh, you’re getting so big!” or “You’ve grown a foot since I saw you!” That seems, at least on the surface, to be the wrong thing to say. On the other hand, saying nothing to a fast-growing child seems almost to draw attention to his size. So, this grandma welcomes any suggestions for positive body talk for children. Please help.

Hm, well I started getting chubby before I hit age 10, and my grandmother in particular found it very difficult to accept. Grandma seemed to see it as a personal failing on my part or that it lessened my value; but I saw my body reflected in the women from the other side of my family. All I could think was: “Do you actually love me less because I am this way? Does my weight/shape reflect poorly on you?” Sometimes it felt that way. My suggestion is just to let your grandson know in every way you can that you love him and accept him as he is. If you help him to feel good about himself as he is, he will have more incentive to take care of himself than if he learns that no matter how good he is inside, his size makes him worthless. Encourage him to be active in ways other than team sports; not everyone enjoys them. Swimming, hiking, dancing, yoga, gardening, horse riding, kayaking, or nature walks are all enjoyable activities that are healthy but aren’t fitness-focused. The focus is on enjoying the activity and the environment. If you notice your grandson has gotten taller, there’s no harm in observing that: “My, how much taller you are than the last time I saw you! You’re growing up so fast!” It’s a fact, not a judgment.

Thank you so much Stephani! You grandma did exactly what I don’t want to do and that’s why I kind of avoid the topic. I really appreciate your hint to comment on his height.

My clue he’s body conscious at age 11 is that he doesn’t take off his t-shirt around his friends even in the hottest weather. On a positive note, he’s recently taken to telling me how strong he is – how he can carry his friend around, so that’s something to build on. Thank you again.

The thing about “opinion” is that each of us forms our opinions on the basis of how we’ve been hurt, thrilled, disappointed, overjoyed, bored, educated, etc… The list goes on forever. All of those experiences create who we think we are and how smart/not smart we perceive ourselves to be. Those same messages we get growing up also “teach” us how widely we should share the wisdom of our brilliant thinking. I believe we all are actually quite intelligent…but often people don’t take the time and effort required to actually work through those ingrained beliefs to find reality instead choosing to go with “well I think it so it is” when that’s actually not true. What we get from unexamined thought is often thoughtless arrogance. We can see it all over the world in the smallest micro moments to world politics. Because of how the Internet is set up people don’t necessarily have to experience much of an effect if they share unexamined thinking. In this case women have been trained for a very long time to accept that we are somehow less than men and as such deserving of criticism rather than praise for the millions of ways we make the world work. The simple truth is — we are all human beings. We each need to treat each other with enormous respect. And instead of having to give credence to the erroneous warped thought, I’m hopeful that one day the world will come around to realizing it’s just that…messy thinking that has yet to be cleaned up. And instead of it being a bullet that erodes (continually) our sense of well being that instead it’s more like a fart that dissolves into thin air, mostly unnoticed in the grand scheme of it all.

I LOVED this. I have only just started my blog and the reason I have held back from starting one is due to my curvy body and not wanting to invite anyone to comment on it, this page and others (including your personal page) has given me confidence to do it. I love the sewing community and wanted to take part. I genuinely think people that feel the need to make nasty comments from behind the keyboard are doing it to better their own ego due to their inadequacies in other areas of their life.
I also think ‘Bill Willard’ should realise most women have strict policies of not jumping into bed or having a long term relationship with a man with such a douchebag attitudes!http://scientificsewing.blogspot.co.uk

Hi Kristy – I’m so glad that you decided to take the plunge and start sewing! I don’t want to give the wrong impression: the vast majority of people online are incredibly positive and supportive, and with the exception of a few bad apples (and bad sites) it’s generally a joy to blog.

Honestly, I don’t get it either. Sometimes I wonder if it’s because the current culture expects you to have an opinion on everything, almost immediately, and so people just think they need to offer their own opinion constantly? I saw someone sum it up recently as “News happened! Pro or con?”. It feels as if people’s sense of identity often now comes from the things they state they’re for or against in social media, rather than by their actions and the things they choose to value in life.

Also, I think a lot of people are obsessed with the notion of honesty over kindness. My own father believes that it’s okay to walk up to someone and say, “Hey, you’re fat”, as long as it’s true. He claims that it’s fine because it’s just being honest, and that there’s nothing inherently wrong with being fat, so they shouldn’t be upset by it. (Like, literally, my five-year-old brother walked up to a lady in the mall and said this to her, and she looked like she was going to cry. My dad didn’t apologize to the lady or anything, but defended my brother’s actions. Like, WHAT?!?!) It’s like, one, there’s really no such thing as objective truth. But two, while I agree that nobody should feel bad about being fat, or not being traditionally beautiful, or not being smart, or whatever, I completely disagree with the fact that you have license to just go up to people and label them with whatever you think they are, and that you’re somehow entitled to tell them this and they get to decide to be offended or not. I’ve argued with him on this point so many times and the gist of my argument has been, “But why do you feel like you even have to say ANYTHING? What would the purpose of such a comment even be?!?” I just feel like kindness and respect should almost always come first, and there’s no point to saying a thing like that because it doesn’t in any way further kindness or respect. People who have a preference for ‘honesty at all costs’ often seem to have an inflated sense of self and little empathy.

Couldn’t agree with you more my dear. I had an ex boyfriend like that. He was like “i actually like skinny flat chested women with tattoos. Why are you upset? I’m just being honest”. Part of being a grown-up human being is knowing how to balance kindness with honesty. And frankly some of the sites where people spend all time being “honest” are far from that – true honesty means you’re doing something non-anonymously, and that you’re going to take responsibility for the consequences of your actions. Snarking about someone from behind a screen is about as dishonest as it gets.
Also: I have all the love for Lindy West!

Oh my god, what a DICK! Yes, it’s like, if that’s how you truly feel, then you need to evaluate what you’re doing in life. If that’s just some random thought and not actually all that integral to your happiness in life, then just freaking let the thought go and you don’t need to say it. Spouting every thought that enters your mind is not the same thing as honesty.

I don’t get this. if a guy is so particular about what interests him physically, is he just using me to get off until he finds the right woman who does satisfy those traits? Or maybe is it that no one that fits his “ideal woman” image will have anything to do with him and he can’t admit that? I get having a type – but don’t be a douchebag about going outside it.

People like you are the reason I stay connected to the internet. Being a soft hearted person is tough sometimes in “real” time and it is especially heartbreaking when all you see everywhere online is hatred spewed. I have stopped sharing opinions or comments, like you mentioned above, for fear of what might be said. Thank you for reminding me that it’s not all bad.

Wow – I had no idea the Guardian had discussed your blog. Way to go!! I am sure this is a bit overwhelming for you – but take it in stride, with your usual grace and humor. I am so inspired by you, your blog and your positive outlook. Keep it up, girl, we are all rooting for you!!

I actually found my way to this site and your blog via the Guardian article and you’ve inspired me to get my sewing machine out and make some things for the first time since I was a teenager, so thank you!

Jenny, confidence and smart outwit body shamers any day of the week! I find your thoughts inspiring! As a curvy senior, I only wish I had your wisdom at your age. I can only hope to grow up as confident and bright as you are. You go, girl!

Exactly! I found in my 20+ years working in a prison that when I was most confident and sure of my decisions, that’s when the body shamers attacked me. When they couldn’t beat my logical arguments, they attacked my looks, weight, and personal choices. People like this are insecure and, unfortunately, use these attacks as a way to make themselves feel superior. If that’s all they got to attack me, then bring it on!!! 🙂